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About

Originating with a performance as part of SPILL Festival of Performance in November 2012, Bedding Out emerges from the current welfare benefits overhaul, which threatens many with poverty and a propagandist campaign that has seen a doubling in disability hate crime.

The project sees artist-activist Liz Crow taking her private bed-oriented life and placing it in the public arena for all to see over a 48-hour period in order to show that what many see as contradiction, or fraud, is simply the complexity of real life. Bedding Out has gone on to tour as part of the People Like You exhibition at Salisbury Arts Centre in April 2013, coinciding with the introduction of the Personal Independence Payment, which replaced Disability Living Allowance on 8 April 2013.

Members of the public are invited to participate in ‘Bedside Conversations’, gathering around the bed to talk about the work, its backdrop and its politics, while those unable to attend in person are invited to take part virtually, through social media. The Salisbury performance was watched on livestream by more than 9,750 people in over 50 countries and received national coverage in The Guardian newspaper. In August 2013, Bedding Out travelled to Edinburgh where it was performed as part of The Fringe.

Bedding Out also exists in installation form.

Bedding Out was commissioned as part of Disability Arts Online’s Diverse Perspectives project (www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk), which commissioned eight disabled artists across the UK to make a new artwork that would spark conversations and debate about the Creative Case for Diversity.

Transcript

Twitter Conversations

These Twitter Conversations contain a selection of the many thousands of #beddingout tweets generated from the run up to the Salisbury and Edinburgh performances to their aftermath.

Eight conversations were held with people around the bed, with commentary from the twitter feed, as well as several conversations that were specifically twitter-based. As well as public twitter conversations, others were held with Occupational Therapy Chat, DADAA (Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts) in Australia and with students at Sheffield Hallam University.

Tweets have been edited for ease of reading and reordered by theme. A few additional comments have been included from Facebook and The Guardian article about Bedding Out. Some conversations run over several tweets and have been edited into paragraphs.

All URLs were checked in September 2013.

Liz Crow would like to thank Judith Stewart and Emma Sheppard for help with editing and especially ‘tweetmeisters’ Dawn Willis and Laura, without whom there wouldn’t have been a twitter feed at all!

Benefits and Work
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Counselling & crisis

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Turn to Me
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